Itsy Bitsy
by WTFWonder
Summary: All the difference of a spider. Rob Zombie based.


**Itsy Bitsy**

By Someone with Time on Their Hands

Summary: All the difference of a spider. Rob Zombie based.

Laurie gaped up at the monolith of a murderer, his mask tilted down so that he could look back. It was a miracle she wasn't rattling like a leaf in a tornado. This faceless giant had tortured Annie, murdered Paul, Linda and two policemen with who knew how many more tallies in his past. He had been shot—_shot_—point blank by the second officer and hadn't so much as twitched. The killer had even used his "weak" arm to scoop up Laurie like a flailing ragdoll without slowing his lumbering gait. And now, staring up at him like a doe with all four legs broken before a hunter, Laurie realized just how easily he could slaughter her as well.

Even without the horrifically long kitchen knife he could surely reach out with one tarantula hand and snap her neck or squash her skull like a tomato. In all likelihood he could just flick his index finger against her forehead and it would have all the effect of a bullet firing into her at point blank. Still holding her ex-girlfriend's head in her lap, now fleetingly aware of how unnaturally limp her neck was, she sputtered out her questions. "Who are you? …What do you _want_?"

"…", said the killer. Without taking his blank eyes off her face he began to shamble forward, the knife shining in the dim light. Her eyes bulged with realization and squinted with fear as she hunched over Linda, gnarled blonde hair falling around her face.

"No, no, no, God, please. Please don't hurt us! Please, _please_ don't hurt me, _please_!" At another time and another place Laurie might have been ashamed of her pleading. Might even have insisting she was faking it because deep down she knew she was stronger than that. She knew she was braver and more badass than the simpering damsels in distress of the movies. But, oh, look at her now. She had no punches to throw, not so much as a kick to the nuts. All she had was her high, keening sobs and pleas. In some corner of her mind that wasn't absorbed in living through the next few seconds, Laurie was sick at herself for being such a crybaby, murderer or not.

Meanwhile the killer had paused mere feet away from her, gazing down impassively at her.

_Clang._

Laurie sniffled and perked her head up at the sound. Metal on dirt on cement. She looked up quizzically, snot running and tears gushing. Sure enough, he was still looming over her but sans the kitchen knife. It was lying harmless in the accumulated soil of the basement, inches from the murderer's boot. She hitched in a gasp as he took one more step closer and promptly flopped down to his knees, still managing to tower over her. Laurie watched mutely as he slowly dug a battered photo from his breast pocket and cradled it gingerly in big bloody hands. For a second his eyes were off her and on the picture. When he looked back up, his hollow eyes were somehow more expectant. He turned the photo around and held it out for her to see.

The girl swallowed a barbed lump in her throat and peered at it. It was black and white with a little boy with long light hair holding what she could only assume was a baby sibling in his arms. The unfettered corner of her mind noted it was rather cute right before the rest of her brain snapped her to attention. Mr. Murder expected her to know who these two were and she quite honestly had never seen the young pair in her life. She glanced back up at the mask as if to wait for a hint. All he did was hold it out further to her. The obviousness of his silence hit her again and she re-crumbled.

How could she give this motherfucker what he wanted if he wouldn't give her a clue, let alone expected her to understand what a picture of a couple of kids meant? "I don't understand; I don't know them! Please, just leave me _alone_!" His only reply was to shake the picture at her, silently ordering her to understand. "_I don't know them_, please..!" She gagged on a sob and trenched her fingers deeper into the dead girl's hair. As she bowed her head she caught sight of the knife again. Strong enough ears might have heard the wheels turning in her head.

Laurie slowly raised her gaze to his mask where his suddenly bright eyes were still staring at her. She took the photo appeasingly, careful not to crease the already worn thing. With both hands free, the killer dug his fingers into the back of his mask and peeled the entire fake face away like a rotten fruit peel. The girl still couldn't see his entire face with the bedraggled curtain of hair falling to his shoulders, but his eyes were much clearer. They were frozen on her from under his brows, his lips parted as if keeping them closed was too much effort after such a breaking task. He threw the mask aside and finally sat on his heels, hands hanging apelike between his legs. Resting.

Laurie waited until his gaze had lowered almost exhaustedly to his lap before beginning. She got down on hands and knees, the gash in her leg buzzing angrily as she did. Making sure to crawl steadily, with her hands sliding through the dirt rather than taking doggish steps with them, Laurie began to murmur. "I want to help you…but I don't understand..." Crawl-slide. "I want to help you…I just don't know how…" Crawl-slide. Laurie lifted glassy, angry eyes to the killer who was still enthralled by the ground. The sane mental corner was on the verge of cheerleading her. In a matter of seconds she would have something better than a punch to throw or a kick to the groin. Something strong enough and hopefully final enough to blot out her parade of tears and pleading.

"I want to _help_ you…" she choked out, her lips all but bursting to shout, _'you motherfucker!_' But it was just a second more—just a second more and the knife would be in her hand. Just a second more, just a second more, just a _second_--!

_Twitch._

It was looking down that did it. Laurie Strode was a strong believer in "out of sight, out of mind." It was the way she'd muscled her way past her first serving of green beans and how she'd mastered the diving board. If she had only grabbed the knife first the damned thing might have just flown off anyway. But no. She had to look down to see what was scrabbling over her knuckles. The girl was rewarded with the sight of a brown recluse spider balanced lightly on her hand, one leg spasming and tapping against her middle knuckle. In the split second before she inhaled, the mental corner berated and cursed her for what she hadn't done. There was a whoosh of air as she gasped and the killer's head tilted at the sound.

Then she squealed like one of the women from the 50's encountering a mouse. One would half expect her to hike up a non-existent skirt and hop up on a stool. Before she even knew it was there the murderer had his hand shackled around her wrist and Laurie's heart stopped. Her eyes popped comically from her sockets as she looked at his face. Even veiled by his hair she could see the sheer rage in his glare even while the rest of his faced stayed as still as his mask. He knew. He knew, he knew, he _knew_. She was quite literally caught red-handed with her fingers a centimeter from the knife handle. Laurie hysterically wondered if he would break her wrist first or hold her still while he rammed his knife through her jugular.

She gasp-shrieked as his other palm came down over her hand. His grimy index and thumb closed on the recluse's twitching leg and tweezed the poisonous little bastard off her hand. Laurie quietly watched as he dropped the thing in the dirt and they watched it try to fumble away from them. The girl held her breath as he curled his fingers around the blade's handle and lifted it with all the slow solemnity of lifting an ax.

_Flink!_

The blade's edge had split the spider in half before she could blink. Laurie jolted in his grasp and a heady sort of relief bloomed in her. He didn't think she was going for the knife. He would drop it again. _She could still make it out of there_. That was up until he threw the weapon clear over his shoulder to land by the furnace. Every expletive Laurie Strode knew flew through her head. "H-uh, please, can you..?" She tugged on her wrist but his fingers were like meaty shackles and there was no slipping out of them. Laurie locked eyes with him and didn't know what to think of what she saw there.

There was no particular word for it; an amalgam of worry, wanting and a constant stirring fog of blackness. His sight dropped down to the relatively child-size hand in his grip. He stroked the knuckles lightly. The girl's hand shook as he did this and a particularly uncaring onlooker might make a connection to Lenny and his tragic mice from Steinbeck's classic. The pair stayed silent for she didn't know how long, her wheels still trying desperately to turn, him focused on nothing more than petting. While Laurie held out an immense amount of frantic hope that that was _all_ he wanted to do. An image of a possible scenario flashed bloodily and repulsively in her mind's eye before she banished it.

Annie had been topless and Linda was flat out nude without so much as a scratch. Surely some of his damnable motivations were sexual, but from the looks of her friends he hadn't…_tried_ anything with them. If this thing wasn't intent on hurting her--outside of the scarily easy abduction, of course—then maybe she could still squirm her way out. Just say the right words, make the right moves, run at the right batshit crazy speed once she got outside. Laurie reached her free hand out planted on top of his. He froze as if caught in a video pause and Laurie almost blew it with another shriek when his hand closed around hers like a vice.

By sheer force of will the girl kept her cool as he dragged her hand over his bristly cheek. His lips drooped open in a warped kind of serenity and he went so far as to lean forward into her trapped palm. Laurie gulped quietly and nudged herself closer. "It's…It's okay. I do want to help you… I do. I don't know how, but you can—you can get help. Really…" She smoothed the bristle down on her own and his hand dropped away from hers cautiously, as if scared losing contact would make her stop. For a split second she wondered if digging her thumb into his eye would provide an escape. No. He survived goddamn gunshots, a hurt eye wouldn't slow him down. Besides, he was actually docile now.

Like a tantrum-throwing child who had his favorite toy back. This didn't excuse him from the guilt of his vicious murder spree, but it made him seem closer to normal. Closer to whatever ethereal sliver of sympathy she could afford him. "It's all alright. Can you tell me your name? I guess you would already know mine," _fucking stalking murdering fucker_, "but I'm Laurie Strode. What?" He was shaking his head gravely and pointed behind her. Keeping her hand still on his face she warily craned her head around. "What, L-Linda?" _Don't cry, don't scream, don't swear._ His finger rose an inch and he pointed stiffly at the gravestone behind her dead girlfriend. "Myers?" He tilted his head down in an affirmative. "Myers. Who is Myers?"

She honestly couldn't give a flying fuck who Myers was at the moment—the dead best friend flopped in front of their headstone was a bit distracting after all. Laurie scrunched her brow in confusion as he first pointed to his chest and then at her face. "I don't…what, are _you_ a Myers? Is that what..?" Unbridled epiphany plunked into place like a brick into water. _Michael Myers_. The horror story child of almost twenty years past. Her parents had talked about him once or twice and she'd heard Officer Brackett mention him in a hush. Michael Myers had been the ten-year-old that had slaughtered his big sister, her boyfriend and his mother's boyfriend on Halloween night. He had gone on to murder one of the nurses at his sanitarium a year later.

Now here he was again in happy hometown Haddonfield on All Hallows Eve, repeating the process. "You're Michael Myers." He cocked his head to the side in a queer sort of nod. He pointed at her face again. "What do you mean, Michael? I don't know what you mean, just tell me…" He pointed at himself and back at her insistently, his brow condensed in quiet demand. "No, no I've never met you before. I don't know why you're doing all this. I _don't._" Better judgment told her she had best cough up a pleasing lie or risk his ire. However, unless better judgment had something to offer, Laurie was coming to an utter blank. The most she could assume was that Mr. Myers assumed _she_ was a Myers, which was total bullshit. She had her mom and dad waiting unassumingly at home and handing out candy to kids, not a suicidal mother and a pair of fictional siblings. Did she remind him of his mom or something? Did she look like his big sister? What? "Please, Michael, just tell me what you _mean_. I don't know if you think I'm your mom or your sister or—ah!" His finger jabbed at her, stopping a hair away from her nose.

"M-Michael your sister's dead you—," _don't remind him, don't remind him_, "—she's dead. I _can't_ be her." Undeterred by this Michael drew his hand back and scooped something off the floor. The photo. He handed it back to Laurie who was now beginning to teeter on the edge of unwanted understanding. Michael crooked his arm into an L shape and bowed it back and forth in front of his chest. The "rock-a-bye-baby" cradle.

No.

He pointed at the photo.

No.

Laurie looked at the photo.

No, no, no.

Michael was the sunny, smiling big brother.

No, no, _no._

And baby sister was…

_NO._

"No, Michael, I-I know my parents! Mom and Dad aren't—I'm an only child, I _know_ I'm not adopted or anything! I know that!" the cool had evaporated entirely now. She was screeching her arguments at the murderer, act be damned. Michael didn't move. He took the verbal explosions as easily as he did lead bullets. Laurie didn't even notice when he let her rip her wrist out of his grasp so that she could flail her hands. "I have always been with Mom and Dad, _always_! Y-Y-You have no proof, not one single goddamn thing! _"Nothing_." Her voice cracked on the last syllable and another stupid trail of tears was blooming on her lashes.

Michael sat in what she guessed was contemplation. A split second before his callused palms had her head sandwiched between them. She was dead. She had gone off on an emotional tangent trying to derail a homicidal lunatic from his delusion and now she would die for it. Her voice hitched as he pulled her head forward—_going to snap her neck, bash her face in, crush her skull like an egg_—and kissed her forehead.

_What?_

She looked up at him crookedly through her fallen hair, only catching sight of his Adam's apple. Michael pulled away and mouthed something soundlessly to her.

_Bay._

_Bee._

_Boo._

Bay, bee, boo? Baby boo? "…Baby boo?" He gave her a hint of a nod. Maybe it was some far away nickname for the baby sister—_that she definitely wasn't, no, no, no_—he was determined she was. At the very least this meant he wouldn't try to kill her any time soon, nor would he be letting her slip away any time _ever_. His thumbs spun in slow, soft circles on her forehead and for one second Laurie Strode felt bad for the psychotic creature. He had murdered friends, police and she couldn't know how many others, but here he was placid, passive and pleading. All Myers wanted in the inky abyss of his mind was his little sister. The one bit of family he had left after he sent the bad bits to Hell and Mommy sent herself to Heaven. She couldn't blame him for that, traumatic abduction aside. Against all common sense Laurie was gawking at her own hand touching the top of his head.

She stroked his long, ragged hair and she saw his eyes widen. The girl held in a gasp as she found herself trapped in the most gigantic and iron tight bear hug she had ever experienced. On the upside this was significantly better than being turned into Swiss cheese by a kitchen knife. Downside? Professional wrestler-strength embraces didn't make for good escapes. "Michael?"

"Michael..?" The pair froze at the sound of the new voice. It was an old English-accented thing echoing from upstairs. "Michael, I know you're here and I know you have her. Please, you need to stop this!" Laurie felt a twisting click in her chest. Someone was here. Someone who knew about Michael. Someone who knew about the whole demented situation and wanted to _help_.

"I'm--! Mmmnn!" Mr. Myers appeared to be well-versed in the art of manhandling. His arm was latched around her middle with her back pinned to his chest. The blood and dirt-laden tarantula hand plastered over her mouth did the rest. Laurie couldn't even use the damsel-in-distress standby of beating her fists fruitlessly against the madman's chest. All she could do was scream muffled screams and kick useless kicks as Michael backed against a wall. His eyes darted from the basement ceiling to the tattered mask on the floor.

Laurie caught this and made a show of reaching her foot towards the grayed latex face. Michael saw. "Michael, _please_, I'm begging you! You don't need to do this! Laurie—she'll never accept you this way. If you just _let her go…_" The man's voice was trailing closer to what Laurie assumed was the basement door. Michael tensed and Laurie brushed the hair of the mask with her toe. Finally he caught the hint and inched towards the fallen face. He knelt down with Laurie bending to his shape. His arm loosened an inch. Laurie reached for the mask. "Michael!" His arm loosened more. Laurie feigned being too restrained. "_Michael!_" His arm relaxed as much as it could without dropping her. Laurie grabbed the mask by its hair.

The rest happened in four long seconds.

Laurie smashed the grey mask into Michael's face.

An old man with a gun stepped out of the basement's stairwell.

Michael was startled enough to drop his captive.

Said captive took her opening and sprinted like a madwoman to the gunwielder's side.

Said gunwielder speedily waved her behind him, the new odd couple holding each other's hands in a death grip. Now free of the psycho's hold Miss Strode was free to resume her pained whimpering, her spare hand nursing the gouge in her leg. The old man spared her a split second glance before turning back to the murderer. The gun was held with its barrel aimed square on the taller fellow's skull. Michael Myers' stare was as physical as a sunbeam on ice cubes. Without blinking he pulled the latex face on over his flesh one and let his hands dangle.

His right hand twitched faintly, the tip of the middle finger tapping his right pocket with nostalgia. His _knife_ pocket, Laurie assumed. "Please, he-he killed her. He killed Li-_hin_da and the police and--!"

"Yes, yes, Laurie. I know what he's done tonight and more. Just stay behind me; it'll be alright." She noted he had that soothing undercurrent that a select few English accents held. Grandfatherly, and easy to trust. Laurie could almost believe him. "Now Michael, it's me. It's Samuel. You need to stay calm and you need. To. Stop. Alright?"

"…", answered Michael. His eyes shot from Samuel to the knife lying between them and over to Laurie. Samuel didn't risk averting his eyes and kept his finger hesitantly on the trigger.

"Laurie, what is he looking at?"

"Th-the knife. It's by the furnace." Close.

So is he.

He's strong, but slow.

Not too slow when he's killing someone.

Get the damn knife or neither of you will have a chance.

But Michael will--.

GO.

Before her suicidal feet knew they were doing it, they were racing the rest of Laurie Strode with them to the knife. The good news was that Laurie did get the knife. The bad news was that Samuel missed his shot. The worse news was that Michael didn't. Laurie yelped as her formerly armed wrist was re-clamped in the monster's hand. The blade dropped neatly into his waiting right palm. In a grim mimic of their last meeting Laurie was scooped into another neat little side load on his hip. Her voice came out in hoarse shrieking pants, her throat too ragged to scream.

"Michael!"

_Bang!_

_Stomp._

_Bang!_

_Stomp._

_Bang!_

_Stomp._

_Slchk!_

"Aaah!"

_Wham!_

_Thlunk!_

_Fwump._

That was all it took for Laurie Strode to end up as she did. A few bullets, a few bodies and a good old man's head meeting with a brick wall. And for all she knew it was because of that goddamn spider.

Samuel had still been breathing after his knock to the head. She was too after he knocked her out for the second time. When she woke up she was in a new dark room in a new dark old house. It had come with the added prize of having no windows and door that locked from the outside. On a dust-thick nightstand there had been a torn bag of McDonald's with telltale red spots deforming Ronald and his friends. In the corner was the MYERS tombstone waiting as patiently as it had in the basement. It wasn't until ten minutes of banging on the door that she noticed her new pseudo brother standing three feet away from her.

The conversation was as one-sided as all their discussions had and now always would be. Where was she? Why was he doing this? Wouldn't he please just let her go? His only responses were stares, strokes, awkward hugs and the occasional gift of food or newspaper. According to the latter she was now a missing person with her parents listed in the obituaries. Her epic banshee fit over that was brushed off like the buzz of a fly. Followed by an apology gift of Halloween candy.

It was a bag he had no doubt stolen, a survivor of the Halloween sale dash. There were little Crunches and Three Musketeers and Reese cups in the stash and Laurie had been munching blandly on them for the past few hours staring at the door. In the middle of considering she might never see the world outside of the murderer obsessed with her being his itsy bitsy sister, "Baby Boo."

_Twitch_.

Laurie looked down to see another spider, significantly tinier than the one that got her into this hell. Almost cute.

"…", said Laurie.

Her hand came down on it like a hammer.

Author's Note: Hell if I know how this brain fart happened, but it did. –shakes head at her right brain's stupidity-


End file.
